Faculty Spotlight

Chang-Xing Ma

Chang-Xing Ma is an associate professor in the Department of Biostatistics and co-director of MPH Biostatistics Concentration at the University at Buffalo School of Public Health and Health Professions.

What is your role in the Department of Biostatistics?

My role in the department involves teaching, directing master and PhD students, and conducting both methodological and collaborative research. As MPH concentration co-director, my duties include, but are not limited to academic advising of MPH students in our department, monitoring their process in the program, reviewing admissions, and and overall MPH program reviews. I ensure that students excel throughout the program and, if on occasion someone falls behind, I take whatever actions are appropriate to help the student succeed.

What is the focus of your research?

The focus of my statistical research has primarily resided in four broad areas, namely: experimental designs, statistical genetics, small sample inference, and paired binary data inference.

What are the real-world implications fo the research you conduct?

I have collaborated with the faculty, research fellows, residents at Women and Children’s hospital for past 12 years. In that time, I have applied my research and statistical knowledge to medical research and hundreds of projects.

Why UB?

When I joined UB in 2005, the department was in its infancy. Having the ability to teach and mentor students as well as conduct research was very appealing to me and I continue to enjoy those aspects of my role here at the School of Public Health and Health Professions.

This project focuses on the preparation and writing of a book that will reflect a growing need for rigorous systematic presentations of classical and novel empirical likelihood (EL) approaches and their applications in biomedicine and health.